Picasso Project for kids: Abstract bulls
Others have seen what is and asked why. I have seen what could be and asked why not.
-Pablo Picasso
grab the complete PICASSO BULL project PDF + Printable pack here:
H: What is the difference between a cow and an ox? mom, do cows have horns too or only bulls?
I almost said: No, only bulls have horns but something made me pause instead.
ME: You know, I don’t really know the answers to your questions.. let’s Google!
What did we do before Google? Were our children fed a lot of my best guess is.. surely the Encyclopedia Britannica did not have ALL the answers. If my mom is reading she is going to say: we went to the library. TGFG because within 3 seconds we had our answers and my world was rocked. I really thought that a horned bovine was automatically a bull. I have always been curious about the Ox.. I assumed that it was a cow cousin but did not know what made it an Ox exactly.
COW ClIFFNOTES:
Cow - A female who has had a baby (or many babies).
Heifer - A female who has not had a baby.
Bull - An intact male.
Steer - A castrated male.
Ox/Oxen - adult, male or female, trained in draft work (pulling). Often males that have been castrated as adults.
Calf - A baby, male or female.
Bullock - In the UK, a castrated male. In the USA, an intact male, less than a year old.
Cattle - either gender (or both) in a group.
ABOUT THE HORNS:
Horns are common on both males and females, especially in dairy breeds. It’s not usually possible to tell if you’re looking at a bull or cow just by looking at the head (whoops!). You’d need to get a look at the under belly anatomy to be sure. Udders are only visibly present in cows. Heifers have udders but they aren’t typically distended or visibly hanging because she’s never had a calf. Intact males are bulls, castrated males are steer.
Some cattle are naturally hornless. This is called being “polled” and is a genetic trait in cattle that can be passed down to their offspring. It’s also common for cattle on farms to have their horns removed as very young babies, so they never grow, and to have the horns on adult cattle cut or blunted so they don’t hurt each other or the people working with them.
information source: The Animal Keeper Blog via the Museum of Life and Science
Okay, but what exactly is an OX?
Great question. I think you’re going to want to read this sweet little informational guide from Billings Farm & Museum. It seems we are not alone because the guide is literally named what is an Ox anyway?
Now for the art. We did a deep dive into bovine art at the end of February. Today’s project was inspired by Picasso’s bull plate V, 1945. The materials are simple, the process is fun and the results are pretty rad. We had a lot of fun with this process and we hope you do too!
materials:
bull project printable pack available here
if you have oil pencils they are fun too
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if you want a smooth painterly quality, add a dab of oil and blend your pastel sections. We kept ours rough and unblended because we liked the look.
Start by doing a little warming up with some sketching lines and shapes. Test your colors and choose your palette. Grab the Picasso inspired Bull Bundle here
You can find the Picasso inspired Bull Bundle here
2. Take a white or black oil pastel and sketch out your bull shape. We cut out our cow heads but if I was doing this with a large class of students I would probably use the whole cardboard sheet to avoid the cutting. You can keep the abstraction going in the background if you are skipping the cut-out step.
Here’s an example of how we started to lay down color. Notice that we are using each color in more than one section of our bull.
Next we went in and added some black oil pastel. If you started with black oil pastel you might want to add some pops of white at this stage. The finishing touch was adding some red on the left ear, the neck and one of the nostrils.
If you love this project you might want to check out our Picasso inspired Vase with a Face Class or our 3-D Picasso Sculpture Project. You can find the printable bundle for the project here and the full project post here.
Here are some more of the bulls we made:
